Friday, June 26, 2015

Over the past week and a half I have been very emotional in regards to the shootings in South Carolina. I was trying to make sense of something that did not make sense. Then, the fact that the shooting happened in a church was like putting more acid on an open wound. I talked and talked and cried and cried about it....and then I heard that the President would eulogize the Reverend that was shot. I wondered if he would play it safe or if he would let loose at last. Well, I thought that maybe it was finally the right time for the President to speak from his heart about racism in America. I was hoping he would and I stayed home from work in that hope...and he did just that!

The moment occurred at the funeral of the Rev. Clementa Pinckney pastor of the AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina as he gave the eulogy. Here is a video of the full speech with its text to follow.

OBAMA: Giving all praise and honor to God.
(APPLAUSE)
The Bible calls us to hope, to persevere and have faith in things not
seen. They were still living by faith when they died, the scripture
tells us.
(APPLAUSE)
They did not receive the things
promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance,
admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.

We
are here today to remember a man of God who lived by faith, a man who
believed in things not seen, a man who believed there were better days
ahead off in the distance, a man of service, who persevered knowing
full-well he would not receive all those things he was promised, because
he believed his efforts would deliver a better life for those who
followed, to Jennifer, his beloved wife, Eliana and Malana, his
beautiful, wonderful daughters, to the Mother Emanuel family and the
people of Charleston, the people of South Carolina.

I cannot
claim to have had the good fortune to know Reverend Pinckney well, but I
did have the pleasure of knowing him and meeting him here in South
Carolina back when we were both a little bit younger…
(LAUGHTER)
… back when I didn’t have visible gray hair.
(LAUGHTER)
The
first thing I noticed was his graciousness, his smile, his reassuring
baritone, his deceptive sense of humor, all qualities that helped him
wear so effortlessly a heavy burden of expectation.

Friends of
his remarked this week that when Clementa Pinckney entered a room, it
was like the future arrived, that even from a young age, folks knew he
was special, anointed. He was the progeny of a long line of the
faithful, a family of preachers who spread God’s words, a family of
protesters who so changed to expand voting rights and desegregate the
South.

Clem heard their instruction, and he did not forsake their
teaching. He was in the pulpit by 13, pastor by 18, public servant by
23. He did not exhibit any of the cockiness of youth nor youth’s
insecurities. Instead, he set an example worthy of his position, wise
beyond his years in his speech, in his conduct, in his love, faith and
purity.

As
a senator, he represented a sprawling swathe of low country, a place
that has long been one of the most neglected in America, a place still
racked by poverty and inadequate schools, a place where children can
still go hungry and the sick can go without treatment — a place that
needed somebody like Clem.

(APPLAUSE) His position in the
minority party meant the odds of winning more resources for his
constituents were often long. His calls for greater equity were
too-often unheeded. The votes he cast were sometimes lonely.

But
he never gave up. He stayed true to his convictions. He would not grow
discouraged. After a full day at the Capitol, he’d climb into his car
and head to the church to draw sustenance from his family, from his
ministry, from the community that loved and needed him. There, he would
fortify his faith and imagine what might be.

Reverend Pinckney
embodied a politics that was neither mean nor small. He conducted
himself quietly and kindly and diligently. He encouraged progress not by
pushing his ideas alone but by seeking out your ideas, partnering with
you to make things happen. He was full of empathy and fellow feeling,
able to walk in somebody else’s shoes and see through their eyes.

No
wonder one of his Senate colleagues remembered Senator Pinckney as “the
most gentle of the 46 of us, the best of the 46 of us.”

Clem was
often asked why he chose to be a pastor and a public servant. But the
person who asked probably didn’t know the history of AME Church.

(APPLAUSE)As
our brothers and sisters in the AME Church, we don’t make those
distinctions. “Our calling,” Clem once said, “is not just within the
walls of the congregation but the life and community in which our
congregation resides.”
(APPLAUSE)
He embodied the idea
that our Christian faith demands deeds and not just words, that the
sweet hour of prayer actually lasts the whole week long, that to put our
faith in action is more than just individual salvation, it’s about our
collective salvation, that to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and
house the homeless is not just a call for isolated charity but the
imperative of a just society.

What
a good man. Sometimes I think that’s the best thing to hope for when
you’re eulogized, after all the words and recitations and resumes are
read, to just say somebody was a good man.
(APPLAUSE)
You don’t have to be of high distinction to be a good man.
Preacher
by 13, pastor by 18, public servant by 23. What a life Clementa
Pinckney lived. What an example he set. What a model for his faith.

And
then to lose him at 41, slain in his sanctuary with eight wonderful
members of his flock, each at different stages in life but bound
together by a common commitment to God — Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson,
Ethel Lance, DePayne Middleton Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel L.
Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Myra Thompson.
Good people. Decent people. God-fearing people.
(APPLAUSE)
People so full of life and so full of kindness, people who ran the race, who persevered, people of great faith.
To the families of the fallen, the nation shares in your grief.

Our pain cuts that much deeper because it happened in a church.

The church is and always has been the center of African American life…
(APPLAUSE)
… a place to call our own in a too-often hostile world, a sanctuary from so many hardships.
Over
the course of centuries, black churches served as hush harbors, where
slaves could worship in safety, praise houses, where their free
descendants could gather and shout “Hallelujah…”
(APPLAUSE)
… rest stops for the weary along the Underground Railroad, bunkers for the foot soldiers of the civil-rights movement.
They
have been and continue to community centers, where we organize for jobs
and justice, places of scholarship and network, places where children
are loved and fed and kept out of harms way and told that they are
beautiful and smart and taught that they matter.
(APPLAUSE)
That’s
what happens in church. That’s what the black church means — our
beating heart, the place where our dignity as a people in inviolate.
There’s no better example of this tradition than Mother Emanuel, a church…
(APPLAUSE)
…
a church built by blacks seeking liberty, burned to the ground because
its founders sought to end slavery only to rise up again, a phoenix from
these ashes. (APPLAUSE)
When
there were laws banning all-black church gatherers, services happened
here anyway in defiance of unjust laws. When there was a righteous
movement to dismantle Jim Crow, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached
from its pulpit, and marches began from its steps.A sacred
place, this church, not just for blacks, not just for Christians but for
every American who cares about the steady expansion…(APPLAUSE)… of human rights and human dignity in this country, a foundation stone for liberty and justice for all.That’s what the church meant.
(APPLAUSE)
We
do not know whether the killer of Reverend Pinckney and eight others
knew all of this history, but he surely sensed the meaning of his
violent act. It was an act that drew on a long history of bombs and
arson and shots fired at churches, not random but as a means of control,
a way to terrorize and oppress…
(APPLAUSE)
… an act that
he imagined would incite fear and recrimination, violence and suspicion,
an act that he presumed would deepen divisions that trace back to our
nation’s original sin.
Oh, but God works in mysterious ways.
(APPLAUSE)
God has different ideas.
(APPLAUSE)
He didn’t know he was being used by God.
(APPLAUSE)Blinded
by hatred, the alleged killer would not see the grace surrounding
Reverend Pinckney and that Bible study group, the light of love that
shown as they opened the church doors and invited a stranger to join in
their prayer circle.The alleged killer could have never
anticipated the way the families of the fallen would respond when they
saw him in court in the midst of unspeakable grief, with words of
forgiveness. He couldn’t imagine that.(APPLAUSE)The
alleged killer could not imagine how the city of Charleston under the
good and wise leadership of Mayor Riley, how the state of South
Carolina, how the United States of America would respond not merely with
revulsion at his evil acts, but with (inaudible) generosity. And more
importantly, with a thoughtful introspection and self-examination that
we so rarely see in public life. Blinded by hatred, he failed to
comprehend what Reverend Pinckney so well understood — the power of
God’s grace.
(APPLAUSE)
This whole week, I’ve been reflecting on this idea of grace.
(APPLAUSE)
The
grace of the families who lost loved ones; the grace that Reverend
Pinckney would preach about in his sermons; the grace described in one
of my favorite hymnals, the one we all know — Amazing Grace.
(APPLAUSE)
How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
(APPLAUSE)
I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.
(APPLAUSE)
According
to the Christian tradition, grace is not earned. Grace is not merited.
It’s not something we deserve. Rather, grace is the free and benevolent
favor of God.
(APPLAUSE)
As manifested in the salvation of
sinners and the bestowal of blessings. Grace — as a nation out of this
terrible tragedy, God has visited grace upon us for he has allowed us to
see where we’ve been blind.
(APPLAUSE)
He’s given us the
chance where we’ve been lost to find out best selves. We may not have
earned this grace with our rancor and complacency and short-sightedness
and fear of each other, but we got it all the same. He gave it to us
anyway. He’s once more given us grace.
But it is up to us now to make the most of it, to receive it with gratitude and to prove ourselves worthy of this gift.
For too long, we were blind to the pain that the Confederate Flag stirred into many of our citizens.
(APPLAUSE)
It’s
true a flag did not cause these murders. But as people from all walks
of life, Republicans and Democrats, now acknowledge, including Governor
Haley, whose recent eloquence on the subject is worthy of praise…
(APPLAUSE)
… as we all have to acknowledge, the flag has always represented more than just ancestral pride.
(APPLAUSE)
For many, black and white, that flag was a reminder of systemic oppression…
(APPLAUSE)
… and racial subjugation.
(APPLAUSE)
We see that now.
Removing
the flag from this state’s capital would not be an act of political
correctness. It would not an insult to the valor of Confederate
soldiers. It would simply be acknowledgement that the cause for which
they fought, the cause of slavery, was wrong.
(APPLAUSE)
The imposition of Jim Crow after the Civil War, the resistance to civil rights for all people was wrong.
(APPLAUSE)
It would be one step in an honest accounting of America’s history, a modest but meaningful balm for so many unhealed wounds.
It
would be an expression of the amazing changes that have transformed
this state and this country for the better because of the work of so
many people of goodwill, people of all races, striving to form a more
perfect union.
By taking down that flag, we express adds grace God’s grace.
(APPLAUSE)
But I don’t think God wants us to stop there.
(APPLAUSE)For too long, we’ve been blind to be way past injustices continue to shape the present.
(APPLAUSE)
Perhaps
we see that now. Perhaps this tragedy causes us to ask some tough
questions about how we can permit so many of our children to languish in
poverty…
(APPLAUSE)
… or attend dilapidated schools or grow up without prospects for a job or for a career.Perhaps it causes us to examine what we’re doing to cause some of our children to hate.
(APPLAUSE)
Perhaps
it softens hearts towards those lost young men, tens and tens of
thousands caught up in the criminal-justice system and lead us to make
sure that that system’s not infected with bias.
(APPLAUSE)
… that we embrace changes in how we train and equip our police so that the bonds of trust between law enforcement…
(APPLAUSE)
… and the communities they serve make us all safer and more secure.
(APPLAUSE)Maybe
we now realize the way a racial bias can infect us even when we don’t
realize it so that we’re guarding against not just racial slurs but
we’re also guarding against the subtle impulse to call Johnny back for a
job interview but not Jamal…(APPLAUSE)… so that we search our hearts when we consider laws to make it harder for some of our fellow citizens to vote…(APPLAUSE)… by recognizing our common humanity, by treating every child as important, regardless of the color of their skin…(APPLAUSE)…
or the station into which they were born and to do what’s necessary to
make opportunity real for every American. By doing that, we express
God’s grace.(APPLAUSE)
For too long…
(APPLAUSE)
For too long, we’ve been blind to the unique mayhem that gun violence inflicts upon this nation.
(APPLAUSE)
Sporadically,
our eyes are open when eight of our brothers and sisters are cut down
in a church basement, 12 in a movie theater, 26 in an elementary school.
But I hope we also see the 30 precious lives cut short by gun violence
in this country every single day…
(APPLAUSE)
… the
countless more whose lives are forever changed, the survivors crippled,
the children traumatized and fearful every day as they walk to school,
the husband who will never feel his wife’s warm touch, the entire
communities whose grief overflows every time they have to watch what
happened to them happening to some other place.
The vast majority of Americans, the majority of gun owners want to do something about this. We see that now.
(APPLAUSE)
And
I’m convinced that by acknowledging the pain and loss of others, even
as we respect the traditions, ways of life that make up this beloved
country, by making the moral choice to change, we express God’s grace.
(APPLAUSE)
We don’t earn grace. We’re all sinners. We don’t deserve it.
(APPLAUSE)
But God gives it to us anyway.
(APPLAUSE)
And we choose how to receive it. It’s our decision how to honor it.

None
of us can or should expect a transformation in race relations
overnight. Every time something like this happens, somebody says, “We
have to have a conversation about race.” We talk a lot about race.
(APPLAUSE)
There’s no shortcut. We don’t need more talk.
(APPLAUSE)
None of us should believe that a handful of gun safety measures will prevent every tragedy.
It
will not. People of good will will continue to debate the merits of
various policies as our democracy requires — the big, raucous place,
America is. And there are good people on both sides of these debates.
Whatever
solutions we find will necessarily be incomplete. But it would be a
betrayal of everything Reverend Pinckney stood for, I believe, if we
allow ourselves to slip into a comfortable silence again.(APPLAUSE)Once
the eulogies have been delivered, once the TV cameras move on, to go
back to business as usual. That’s what we so often do to avoid
uncomfortable truths about the prejudice that still infects our society.(APPLAUSE)To
settle for symbolic gestures without following up with the hard work of
more lasting change, that’s how we lose our way again. It would be a
refutation of the forgiveness expressed by those families if we merely
slipped into old habits whereby those who disagree with us are not
merely wrong, but bad; where we shout instead of listen; where we
barricade ourselves behind preconceived notions or well-practiced
cynicism.
Reverend Pinckney once said, “Across the south, we have
a deep appreciation of history. We haven’t always had a deep
appreciation of each other’s history.”

(APPLAUSE) Clem understood that justice
grows out of recognition of ourselves in each other; that my liberty
depends
What is
true in the south is true for America.on you being free, too.
(APPLAUSE)
That — that
history can’t be a sword to justify injustice or a shield against
progress. It must be a manual for how to avoid repeating the mistakes of
the past, how to break the cycle, a roadway toward a better world. He
knew that the path of grace involves an open mind. But more importantly,
an open heart.That’s what I felt this week — an open heart.
That more than any particular policy or analysis is what’s called upon
right now, I think. It’s what a friend of mine, the writer Marilyn
Robinson, calls “that reservoir of goodness beyond and of another kind,
that we are able to do each other in the ordinary cause of things.”That reservoir of goodness. If we can find that grace, anything is possible.(APPLAUSE)If we can tap that grace, everything can change. Amazing grace, amazing grace.
Amazing grace…
(SINGING)
(APPLAUSE)
… how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind, but now, I see.
(APPLAUSE)
Clementa Pinckney found that grace…
(APPLAUSE)
… Cynthia Hurd found that grace…
(APPLAUSE)
… Susie Jackson found that grace…
(APPLAUSE)
… Ethel Lance found that grace…
(APPLAUSE)
… DePayne Middleton Doctor found that grace…
(APPLAUSE)
… Tywanza Sanders found that grace…
(APPLAUSE)
… Daniel L. Simmons, Sr. found that grace…
(APPLAUSE) … Sharonda Coleman-Singleton found that grace…
(APPLAUSE)
… Myra Thompson found that grace…
(APPLAUSE)
…
through the example of their lives. They’ve now passed it onto us. May
we find ourselves worthy of that precious and extraordinary gift as long
as our lives endure.
May grace now lead them home. May God continue to shed His Grace on the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)

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